Alpha and Omega
I make known the end from the beginning,from ancient times, what is still to come,I say; My purpose will stand,and I will do all that I please.
Isaiah 46:10 (NIV)
A good book is hard to come by, isn’t it? There have been so many times I have been wound up in a plot or the inner workings of character development, turning each page and expecting more, more, more, only to be met with less and less. And on this side of the table, it’s easy to come up with a great beginning for a story, isn’t it? Sometimes that mysterious rabbit trail appears in the middle of a sink full of dishes or a screaming carpool of kids we are tuning out, and we just have to chase it to see where it leads. We’re not even sure where we’re going yet, but we are just enticed by the possibility of something. Sometimes we feel as if we know the characters filling our thoughts — inside and out, backwards and forwards. The challenge for us, though, is building that gauntlet course for her to run through, to somehow make her dynamic. To make the end better than that wonderful first introduction. To spin the plot into something gigantic and complicated and daunting, and then to somehow contract it back into something even more powerful, in the simplest of things we call “the end.” That is the feat, the thrill, that is the terrific challenge to the writer. I was thinking about the God we serve this Sunday, as the crowd around me sang about His Being. How miraculous and incredible He is, how His Name is above every other. “Beginning and the End,” we sang, and this stirred my heart in an amazing way, thinking in the terms I understand best. He is the beginning and determines the ultimate end of the story of mankind. His purposes will encompass all of eternity, and He knows exactly where He is going with this. In fact, one of the most wonderful things about Him is that His power is never watered down somewhere in the middle. At no point are we left to our own devices to create the drama. At no point will the page we are on be meaningless or simply a distraction. The Author of Life has written a story that never has a dull moment and never leaves us wanting, and as far as His “voice,” well, He is a Master at that technique. His passion and creativity shine in every scene and in every unfolding of each detail. He knows each of us, and we are far more than characters in His plan; He calls us friends, and knows every hair on each of our heads. And the last chapter will be wrapped up in His infinite glory – something we will celebrate forever with the true Alpha and Omega. Now, how’s that ending for you?
